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Getting Out of a Jam with Frank Ocean: Silently Marketing Your Way from Serfdom to Ownership

For as long as I’ve been a serious fan and student of music since around 2010, I can remember always being a fan of Frank Ocean. It was in this year that Frank had signed to major music label Def Jam Recordings. His humble beginnings in the music industry had been as a credited writer for various artists including Beyonce, Justin Bieber, John Legend, and others. Although this was respectable work in the business, Frank had not signed to the label with only the hopes of being a ghostwriter. He had bigger ambitions to be an artist and yet, Def Jam scarcely maintained a relationship with him outside of songwriting. Frustrated with the lack of relationship and control he had with the label, he decided to make things happen himself.

In 2011, Frank independently released his mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra. As an independent release, the work did not need to undergo as much approval and bureaucracy as did a commercially-released album. Nostalgia, Ultra was met with admiration in the underground music world and Def Jam’s interest was piqued. The label decided to release two of the songs as official singles and wanted to repackage the entire work as a commercial album but couldn’t due to issues with sample clearances. Now with the attention of his label, Frank needed to pull them in with something bigger. He demanded and was given both $1 million and complete control over his official debut album which he began to work on.

In the following year, Frank released his official debut, Channel Orange, with Def Jam to critical acclaim. The album boasted two hit singles, reached No. 2 on the Billboard charts, and even won a Grammy for Best Urban Contemporary Album. The album was quickly touted as a future classic for the artist. It seemed as though Frank was the prized fighter golden boy sitting in Def Jam’s corner. However, Frank still had some moves left in his arsenal and one more contractual obligation for an album to fulfill.

After the success of Channel Orange, Frank began to fade into a reclusive hiatus from any kind of attention. Where both the record label and the fans are eagerly awaiting the next masterpiece, most would figure an artist to soak up all the spotlight possible in order to build up to the next release. However, Frank decided to do the opposite and shy away from all social media while he quietly worked on music in various corners of the world. As time went on, he would very rarely drop hints of his next work on social media platforms in the form of a song snippet, a blog post announcing that he is working on “two versions”, and an ambiguous video of a card with different dates stamped and crossed out on it. This sparse starving of information and intentional mystery had everyone bursting with both excitement and anticipation.

Eventually on August 1, 2016 at 3 AM, a live video stream appeared on his website. Lasting 140 hours, the stream showed a distant figure appearing at random times to do some woodworking while instrumentals faintly played in the background. After the live video had completed, Endless had appeared on Apple Music on August 19 as a 45-minute streaming-exclusive visual album. The strange format, exclusive accessibility, and eclectic style of the album made for a reasonable yet slightly-lukewarm reception from the fans.  Frank was awarded meager royalties due to the tepid popularity of the album and proportionally-small artist dividends from the label, but had ultimately completed his contract with Def Jam. While both the label and the fans had been pacified with this album, Frank was not done.

The immediate day after the release of Endless, Frank releases a 55-minute album entitled Blonde exclusively on Apple Music. This time, however, the album description displayed Boys Don’t Cry as the publisher; Frank’s new independent label. Since Def Jam and most music labels own the rights and most of the profits for artists’ work, Frank would be owed little revenue for his album much like what he received for Endless. Thus, Endless served as a decoy and contract closer while Blonde served as his actual sophomore album under his own independent label and thus securing him all rights to his music. According to rapper and close friend A$AP Rocky, releasing the album as an Apple exclusive earned him a rumored $20 million that would have mostly gone to Def Jam had he released it under the major music label instead of independently. Likewise, music labels are notorious for being strict when approving the content and style of artists’ work whereas independent releases can sound like and be about whatever the artist wants to publish. Thus, Frank had simultaneously escaped a less-than-lucrative contract, increased his earnings, secured his music rights, and ultimately published the exact artistic works he wanted to make.

Since this incident, artists all across the industry have praised Frank for his cunning and patience in doing what they wish they could have thought of. Both music labels and artists are more attentive and conscious about how they handle contractual dealings. Lucian Grainge, CEO of Universal Music Group which is the parent company of Def Jam, had announced soon after the release of Blonde that artists under the Def Jam label were no longer allowed to make exclusive releases with streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, etc.  In the end, it seems that through his strategic planning and marketing ingenuity, Frank had stayed completely in the realm of legality whilst getting away with one of the biggest heists ever in the music industry.